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The Santa Barbara Bowl Foundation Board of Directors announced that an anonymous foundation has issued a one-to-one matching challenge to its American Classic Campaign for renovation and restoration.

The challenge requires that the campaign raise $2 million by December 31, 2013, after which the anonymous foundation will release its own $2 million donation. Should the challenge be met, the $4-million raised will bring the campaign within $1.5 million of the $27-million goal necessary to complete renovations. Longtime Bowl supporters Chad and Ginnie Dreier have made the first $500,000 donation toward the challenge.

The Santa Barbara Bowl Foundation created its first long-range renovation plans in 1995. In 2004, the foundation announced its American Classic Campaign, which has since raised over $16 million in pledges and cash donations. The Dreier family was also the first to kick-start that campaign. By the time the renovations are complete, over $38 million will have been invested into the master plan since 1995.

“The community realized a dream 75 years ago when the Bowl was built as a gathering place for Old Spanish Days,” said Board President Paul Doré in a press statement. “We continue that dream today as we update the Bowl with state-of-the-art production facilities … . The Bowl is part of what makes Santa Barbara a culturally vibrant, unique city, and the generosity of donors like the anonymous foundation and the Dreier and Towbes families make it possible to preserve the historic amphitheatre for future generations.”

A formal announcement of the challenge will be made at 5 p.m. on Thursday during the Bowl’s End of Season celebration. The Bowl’s new Towbes Family Café, a gift of Ann and Michael Towbes, will be dedicated at the same gathering.

As someone who has lived right above the Bowl for 57 years, I hope that some of this money will be used to put some kind of baffle to reduce some of the noise coming up to my neighborhood. We've been promised this for years, but I still have to close all my doors and windows, particularly when the sound levels are being checked in the afternoons before the concerts.